Prajadhipok
Prajadhipok, also known as Rama VII was the seventh monarch of the Chakri dynasty and the last king of Siam under the absolute monarchy. He ascended the throne in 1925 and reigned until his abdication in 1935 during his self-imposed exile following his fallout with the new democratic government after the 1932 Siamese Revolution, which brought an end to the country’s absolute monarchy.
Born during the reign of King Chulalongkorn, Prajadhipok was the youngest son of Chulalongkorn and Queen Saovabha Phongsri. He succeeded his brother, King Vajiravudh, and pursued significant reforms, including establishing the Privy Council, modernizing financial and public-utility regulations, advancing municipal administration, founding the National Library, expanding university education, establishing the Royal Institute, and commissioning the complete Thai-script edition of the Tripitaka. However, his rule was also marked by weak political leadership and turbulent economy due to the Great Depression, leading to the revolution in 1932. After a failed royalist reactionary revolt in 1933, he went into a self-imposed exile in Britain and later abdicated.
Following his abdication, Prajadhipok and Queen Rambai Barni settled in England and never returned to Siam. As he left no heirs, the cabinet and parliament invited Prince Ananda Mahidol to become king at age nine, marking the rise of the Mahidol branch. After Ananda's death in 1946, his brother Bhumibol Adulyadej succeeded him.
UNESCO has acknowledged the historical importance of documents and artifacts related to King Prajadhipok's reign. His personal collection of photographs and films documented Siam's transition. Additionally, "The Minute Books of the Council of State of Siam ", which include records from his time, are listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. UNESCO has also recognized him as a "great personality" in commemorations.
Early life
Prajadhipok was born on 8 November 1893 in Bangkok, Siam to King Chulalongkorn and Queen Saovabha Phongsri. Prince Prajadhipok was the youngest of nine children born to the couple. Overall he was the king's second-youngest child, and the 33rd and youngest of Chulalongkorn's sons.Unlikely to succeed to the throne, Prince Prajadhipok chose to pursue a military career. Like many of the king's children, he was sent abroad to study, going to Eton College in 1906, then to the Woolwich Military Academy from which he graduated in 1913. He received a commission in the Royal Horse Artillery in the British Army based in Aldershot. In 1910 Chulalongkorn died and was succeeded by Prajadhipok's older brother, Crown Prince Vajiravudh, who became King Rama VI. Prince Prajadhipok was by then commissioned in both the British Army and the Royal Siamese Army. With the outbreak of the First World War and the declaration of Siamese neutrality, King Vajiravudh ordered his younger brother to resign his British commission and return to Siam immediately, a great embarrassment to the prince, who wanted to serve with his men on the Western front. Once home, Prajadhipok became a high-ranking military official in Siam. In 1917 he was ordained temporarily as a monk, as was customary for most Buddhist Siamese men.
In August 1918 Prince Prajadhipok married his childhood friend and cousin Rambai Barni, a descendant of King Mongkut and his Royal Consort Piam. They were married at Sukhothai Palace which was a wedding gift to the couple from Queen Saovabha.
After the war in Europe ended, he attended the École Superieure de Guerre in France, returning to Siam to the Siamese military. During this time, he was granted the additional title Krom Luang Sukhothai. Prajadhipok lived a generally quiet life with his wife at their residence, Sukhothai Palace, next to the Chao Phraya River. The couple had no children. Prajadhipok soon found himself rising rapidly in succession to the throne, as his brothers all died within a relatively short period. In 1925, King Vajiravudh himself died at the age of 44. Prajadhipok became absolute monarch at only thirty-two. He was crowned King of Siam on 25 February 1926.
Last absolute monarch
Relatively unprepared for his new responsibilities, Prajadhipok was nevertheless intelligent, diplomatic in his dealings with others, modest, and eager to learn. However, he had inherited serious political and economic problems from his predecessor. The budget was heavily in deficit, and the royal financial accounts were in serious disorder. The entire world was in the throes of the Great Depression.In an institutional innovation intended to restore confidence in the monarchy and government, Prajadhipok, in what was virtually his first act as king, announced the creation of the Supreme Council of the State of Siam. This council was made up of five experienced members of the royal family, although to emphasise the break with the previous reign the selected five had all fallen out of favour with the previous monarch. The council thus comprised three of the king's uncles, Prince Bhanurangsi, Prince Naris and Prince Damrong Rajanubhab and two of his half-brothers, Prince Kitiyakon and Prince Boriphat.
Many of the Princes of the Supreme Council felt that it was their duty to make amends for the mistakes of the previous reign, but their acts were not generally appreciated, for the government failed to communicate to the public the purpose of the policies they pursued to rectify Vajiravudh's extreme financial extravagances. Gradually these princes arrogated power to themselves, monopolising all the main ministerial positions and appointing their sons and brothers to both administrative and military posts. By April 1926 almost the entire cabinet of ministry heads had been replaced with newly appointed Princes or nobles, with only three former members being re-appointed. While the family appointments brought back men of talent and experience, they also signalled a return to royal oligarchy.
The king clearly wished to demonstrate a clear break with the discredited sixth reign, and his choice of men to fill the top positions appeared to be guided largely by a wish to restore a Chulalongkorn-type government. Unlike his predecessor, the king read virtually all state papers that came his way, from ministerial submissions to petitions by citizens. The king was painstaking and conscientious; he would elicit comments and suggestions from a range of experts and study them, noting the good points in each submission, but when various options were available he would seldom be able to select the best one and abandon others. He would often rely upon the Supreme Council to prod him in a particular direction.
File:King Prajadhipok of Siam.jpg|thumb|140px|left|King Prajadhipok in Khrui, carrying Krabi sword.
From the beginning of his reign King Prajadhipok was acutely aware that political change was necessary if the monarchy was to be preserved. He viewed his newly established Supreme Council as an institutional check upon the powers of an absolute monarch. During 1926, Prajadhipok experimented with using the Privy Council, which had over 200 members at that time, as a quasi-legislative body. This large of an assembly proved too cumbersome, and in 1927 Prajadhipok created the Committee of the Privy Council consisting of 40 members selected from the royal family or nobility. The committee was received positively by the press and was envisaged as a forerunner of a parliament or National Assembly. In practice however the committee remained relatively unimportant and did not develop into a more powerful or representative body.
In 1926 Prajadhipok wrote a lengthy memorandum to his American adviser Francis B. Sayre titled "Problems of Siam" in which he set forth nine questions he felt were the most serious facing the nation. The third question asked whether Siam should have a parliamentary system, which Prajadhipok doubted. The fourth question asked whether Siam was ready for representative government, to which Prajadhipok answered "my personal opinion is an emphatic NO". However, the king did see a possibility to introduce reform at the local level as the "next step in our educational move towards democracy". In 1926 he began moves to develop the concept of prachaphiban, or "municipality", which had emerged late in the fifth reign as a law regarding public health and sanitation. Information was obtained regarding local self-government in surrounding countries, and proposals to allow certain municipalities to raise local taxes and manage their own budgets were drawn up. The fact that the public was not sufficiently educated to make the scheme work militated against the success of this administrative venture. Nevertheless, the idea of teaching the Siamese the concept of democracy through a measure of decentralisation of power in municipalities had become, in Prajadhipok's mind, fundamental to future policy-making. However, Yasukichi Yatabe, Japanese minister to Siam, criticized the king's way and that it would not be accomplished in a hundred years' time.
In September 1931 Britain abandoned the gold standard and devalued sterling by 30 percent. This created a crisis for Siam since most of its foreign exchange was held in sterling. The Minister of Finance kept Siam on the gold standard by linking the currency to the US dollar, but debate about this policy raged within the government into 1932. One impact of this policy was that Siam's rice exports became more expensive than competitor exporters, negatively impacting revenue.
In mid-October 1931 the king returned from a trip to Canada and the US and ordered Prince Devawongse Varoprakar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs to prepare a constitution. The task of drafting this document was given to the American Raymond B. Stevens and Phaya Sri Wisarn Waja. In March the following year they submitted an "Outline of Changes in the Form of Government" together with their comments. Prajadhipok originally planned to announce the new constitution to the nation of 6 April at the opening of the Memorial Bridge to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Chakri dynasty. These proposals met strong opposition from Prince Damrong and other royal members of the Supreme Council and despite his own misgivings that to not proceed would result in a coup against his government, the king ultimately did not make the planned announcement.
On 20 January 1932, with the country deep in depression, the king convened a "round table" meeting to discuss the many competing arguments and to agree on how to tackle the crisis. From this meeting it was agreed to make large cuts in government spending and implement a retrenchment programme. Two weeks later on 5 February the king addressed a group of military officers and spoke at length about the economic situation. In this speech he remarked "I myself know nothing at all about managing finances, and all I can do is listen to the opinions of others and choose the best...If I have made a mistake, I believe I really deserve to be excused by the people of Siam". No previous monarch had ever spoken so honestly. The speech was widely reported and many interpreted his words not as a frank appeal for understanding and cooperation, but as a sign of weakness and proof that the system of rule of fallible autocrats should be abolished.